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Fred Magdoff on What Every Environmentalist Needs to Know about Capitalism
What Every Environmentalist Needs to Know about Capitalism is a short, accessible introduction to the ecological crisis that is intended for a wide audience — why did you decide to write a book like this, and why now? In the fall of 2008 I attended a conference where discussion of the environment was prominent, although […]
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Separating Fact from Fantasy in Bolivia: A Review of Jeffery R. Webber’s From Rebellion to Reform in Bolivia
The election of Bolivia’s first indigenous president, on the back of a mass rebellion that overthrew successive governments, has stirred great interest in this small Andean nation. Given that the Evo Morales government recently celebrated its 2000th day in power — a feat in its own right for a country that has had around 180 […]
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Looking Back for Insights into a New Paradigm
It is becoming widely acknowledged that the leading ideas of some of the most prestigious late-20th-century economists (such as Alan Greenspan and Lawrence Summers in the American government) are outmoded and that a new paradigm of economics is needed. Part I of this essay will focus on two issues which we think it has to […]
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Cautionary Tales for Would-Be Weather Engineers
James Rodger Fleming. Fixing the Sky: The Checkered History of Weather and Climate Control. Columbia Studies in International and Global History Series. New York: Columbia University Press, 2010. Illustrations. xiv + 325 pp. $27.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-231-14412-4. In Fixing the Sky, James Rodger Fleming traces human efforts to control weather and climate from ancient […]
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Energy Information Administration Report Undercounts Subsidies to Coal, Oil, Natural Gas, and Nuclear Energy: Renewables and Energy Efficiency Shortchanged by Flawed EIA Methodology
The Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) latest report on federal energy subsidies, released on August 1, underreported direct and indirect federal subsidies to the nuclear and fossil fuel industries, creating an inflated view of the subsidies that benefit renewable energy and efficiency programs, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). Although the agency concedes that […]
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Facing Up to the Real Cost of Carbon
Your house might not burn down next year. So you could probably save money by cancelling your fire insurance. That’s a “bargain” that few homeowners would accept. But it’s the same deal that politicians have accepted for us, when it comes to insurance against climate change. They have rejected sensible investments in efficiency and clean […]
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Price Formation in Financialized Commodity Markets: The Role of Information
Excerpt: The mid-2000s marked the start of a trend of steeply rising commodity prices, accompanied by increasing volatility. The prices of a wide range of commodities reached historic highs in nominal terms in 2008 before falling sharply in the wake of the financial and economic crisis. Since mid-2009, and especially since the summer of […]
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Shashe Declaration: 1st Encounter of Agroecology Trainers in Africa Region 1
We are 47 people from 22 organizations in 18 countries (Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Angola, Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, Zambia, South Africa, Central African Republic, Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia, Portugal, USA, France, and Germany). We are farmers and staff representing member organizations of La Via Campesina, along with allies from other farmer […]
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A Resurgence of Nuclear Power Poses Significant Challenges
Advocates of nuclear power are promoting a “nuclear renaissance” based on claims that a new generation of reactors will produce relatively cheap electricity while solving the threat posed by global climate change. U.S. power producers have proposed building more than 30 new nuclear reactors — and some proponents have called for building as many as […]
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Second Class Citizens: Gender, Energy and Climate Change in South Africa
Excerpt: Forty percent of South Africa’s 48 million people are poor, and more than half of poor people are female. Official unemployment figures hover at around 25%, but since this statistics does not count those who have given up looking for work, real unemployment may be double this. South Africa is, by world standards, […]
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Path to Solve Climate Talks: Be Clear about Targets and Honour Commitments
13 June 2011 BONN — Today, Ambassador Pablo Solon of the Plurinational State of Bolivia addressed reporters at the UN climate talks in Germany. Ambassador Solon outlined a clear plan, based on submissions from other countries and civil society, on how to move the talks forward in 2011. “The key issue at these talks […]
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On the Nuclear Power 2021 Act and the Nuclear Energy Research Initiative Improvement Act of 2011
Testimony on S. 512, “The Nuclear Power 2021 Act,” and S. 1067, “The Nuclear Energy Research Initiative Improvement Act of 2011,” before the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, U.S. Senate, 7 June 2011 Good morning. On behalf of the Union of Concerned Scientists, I would like to thank Chairman Bingaman, Ranking Member Murkowski, and […]
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Renewable Energy Likely to Become Dominant Climate Change Solution by 2050, U.N. Study Concludes
But Support for Renewable Energy Policies Remains Key to Reaching Goals Renewable energy is likely to become the world’s dominant climate change solution by the middle of the century, according to a new study by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It has the potential to be more competitive than nuclear power, […]
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Nuclear Power: Not the Solution to Climate Change
If carbon emissions from energy production are the problem, is nuclear power the solution? After all, nuclear reactors split uranium atoms to generate heat; no fossil fuels are used on site, and no CO2 is released into the air from the power plant itself. Plenty of voices can be now heard advocating construction of nuclear […]
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The Ecological Rift: A Radical Response to Capitalism’s War on the Planet
John Bellamy Foster, Brett Clark, and Richard York. The Ecological Rift: Capitalism’s War on the Earth. Monthly Review Press, 2010. 544 pages. Climate change is often called the greatest environment threat facing humanity. The threat is very real. Unless we cut carbon pollution fast, runaway climate change will worsen existing environmental and social problems, and […]
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The grave food crisis
Just 11 days ago, January 19, under the title “The time has come to do something,” I wrote: “The worst is that, to a large degree, their solutions will depend on the richest and most developed countries, which will reach a situation that they really are not in a position to confront, unless the world […]
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The Time Has Come To Do Something
I shall relate a bit of history. When the Spanish “discovered” us five hundred years ago, the estimated population on the Island was no more than 200,000 inhabitants who were living in harmony with nature. Their main sources of food came from the rivers, lakes and seas rich in protein; they were also carrying out […]
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The President and the Climate: Reflections on Progressive Obama Delusion and a Curious Line in Bill McKibben’s Eaarth
Just what did Barack Obama and his spinners do to the critical faculties of so many leading American progressives? Some of my regular readers might be surprised to know that I often bring a significant measure of disinclination to my recurrent radical criticism of President Barack Obama and his “progressive” defenders. The reluctance stems […]
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The Equitable Sharing of Atmospheric and Development Space: Some Critical Aspects
Excerpt: In the quest for an international agreement on actions to address the climate change crisis, three aspects have to be the basis simultaneously: The environmental imperative, to prevent the climate from changing to the extent that would have disastrous consequences. The developmental imperative, in that developing countries have the needs and goals of eradicating […]
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WikiLeaks Cables Show Why Washington Won’t Allow Democracy in Haiti
The polarization of the debate around WikiLeaks is pretty simple, really. Of all the governments in the world, the United States government is the greatest threat to world peace and security today. This is obvious to anyone who looks at the facts with a modicum of objectivity. The Iraq war has claimed hundreds of thousands, […]